Explain Ephesians 4:8

In Ephesians 4:8 it says: "He led captive a host of captives". What does this phrase mean? Who is the He and the host of captives? And who had them captive before He led them?

We are studying Ephesians in the reading based school of biblical training. The author of the commentary states this "refers to the fact that Christ has conquered sin, death and the grave through His cross and the empty tomb. He is pictured as having taken captive these enemies as the ancient rulers returned home with their prisoners behind them. Following his resurrection, Christ returned triumphantly to heaven. Former prisoners of sin have been set free forever to serve Christ. Paul referred to himself and others as servants of Christ. In this sense, Christians may be viewed as the captives of Christ".

It sounds like this may be coming from psalm 68:18. In that context, the phrase seems to be referring to God taking His enemies captive in war. In Eph, i think the He is Jesus. It sounds like its talking about his ascension. I'm not sure what that particular phrase means, but In the new testament, Jesus' enemies were the Jews and Satan, so I think it's probably referring to one of those as captives. Since it mentions a host of captives, I would lean toward it being about the Jews. My bible has a reference to Colossians 2:15, which talks about Jesus disarming rulers and authorities (Jewish--not political, if I'm reading it right), so that could go along with it...

But Vanessa's answer sounds like it could be right too... I'll have to think about this one some more.

I was thinking of a mixture of the 2 answers that were given. I think the He is Jesus for sure. I haven't thought about sin, death, and the grave yet so I will have to think on that. Thanks for adding that. In Matt 12:22-29, Mark 3:22-27, and Luke 11:17-26 we see that Satan has a kingdom. We know from John 12:31-32 that his kingdom was the world. In the previous 3 passages it talks about Jesus binding the strong man to carry off his possesions. When combining that with Col 2:15 it kind of seems to me that Jesus was planning on binding Satan (the strong man) and taking people (Satans possesions) out of Satan's kingdom (the world)and transferring them into His spiritual kingdom (the church). Satan's kingdom would decrease and Jesus' kingdom would increase. So then christians would no longer be worldly or sinful but spiritual and Christ like. We would still be living in the world but not of the world as previously. We would no longer be slaves of sin and Satan but slaves of Jesus like Paul said that he was. It seems like I came across some other verses that go along with Col 2:15 but I can't recall them, but they might strengthen this argument.

Does that make sense or am I off base on this? Can you think of any verses that would go along with this?

In thinking of death and the grave I'm wondering if 1Cor 15 and the last part of Rev 20 ties in to this some how?

Any thoughts on this?